checkmate
by thir13enth
Summary: We'd play mind games for hours not needing to exchange a single word. We'd make stories and legends by pointing in the sky, leaving no stars without a tale. We'd create impossible puzzles for each other to solve and end up giving each other the answers to our complex questions. But chess was always your favorite. Zervis.


**For those of y'all that are keeping up to date with the manga, I just want to say that I absolutely love the way Mashima is overlaying Zeref and Mavis through this entire arc, from letting them finish each other's sentences to drawing them with the same facial expressions—just putting them direct against each other but fully synced. Ugh, I can't. Just, what a duo. They could take over the world if they wanted to, together.**

 **Anyway, you're here for the Zervis, so I'll stop talking now. To note, this will be the first of many Zervis fics because I'm steadfast on this ship, which honestly is pretty much one of the only actual canon pairings in the series.**

 **Short drabble, and this one is relatively not-so-happy—but please do enjoy!**

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Do you remember over one hundred years ago when you caught me by the eyes?

One look at your long blonde hair and your gentle pink smile was enough for me to resolve that I would never kill the life behind your emerald green eyes. We stood far from each other then—I, in the dark waters, and you, safe on land—but that moment you spoke to me, I had never felt closer to anyone.

I witnessed your immature youth paired with your mature intellect and remember wondering for a moment if you were also like me—a lifeless ghost aimlessly wandering the barren earth for ages.

But you were too kind, too forgiving, and when you allowed me a little respite of company from my eternal loneliness with creatures you spun from your imagination I knew immediately that you were not cursed to live like I was.

You were twelve then— and you are still twelve now.

When you were surprised by a naked me, a boy that looked your age, you flushed an embarrassed pink, not sure how to apologize now that your innocence was gone. Brave soul you were, you looked me straight in the eye and smiled unabashed in the face of death.

Just as I had mistaken you for an immortal someone like me, you mistook me for a childish someone like you, and you invited me to play in your silly game of imagination. Of course, I played along with your adolescent nonsense; I was intrigued by you—there weren't many people that knew the name of my curse and even less people that wanted to get to know the curse even better.

We'd play mind games for hours not needing to exchange a single word. We'd make stories and legends by pointing in the sky, leaving no stars without a tale. We'd create impossible puzzles for each other to solve and end up giving each other the answers to our complex questions.

Chess was always your favorite. Each player had a specific role and a specific responsibility in the game, you would say—one misplaced piece, one move taken out of turn and the millions of combinations of formations would turn into one path to straight loss.

So we'd play chess in each other's gazes and never look away. We'd play match after match, challenge after challenge. I was thrilled by your steadfastness and determination to win. You were entertained by my unwillingness to lose.

But our naïve games would soon be over.

Later, you would grow ten days older and you'd play a game of war to try to protect your guild friends.

Later, you would take a risk and you'd play a game of chance with some ancient magic that I taught you, desperate magic that you promised you would never use.

I thought I taught you better than to sell your death off for eternal life.

Don't you remember how guilty you felt when you took the first and last breath of a newborn? How you didn't eat for years while wandering the earth searching for ways to die? How you isolated yourself from the people that you loved because you had the power to kill them by simply being near them?

Do you remember then how the sight of me had made your cold dead heart flutter?

You recognized the same despair within me and you sank yourself into the depths of my hellish eyes. You found some kind of consolation in the empty black, in the fact that you knew that I knew what it was like to live a damned existence. After all, I was the one that dragged you into the spell.

For a pitiful moment, I think I might have fallen in love with you.

I'd steal a kiss—and almost your life.

Did I actually love you? The real answer is in whether you lived or died.

If I had actually loved you, you would have been dead, and I would have long fulfilled your wish to end.

That was your only dream at the time, wasn't it?

You didn't forgive me for my mistake. You had given me the chance to grant you the kiss of death, and since I wasn't successful the first time around, I presume you're taking your chance to kiss me back.

Do you wish to end me? Do you dare to send your living human friends against mine? Will you make the world our battlefield? Is the world just simply our chessboard? Are your living human friends simply your players in one of our endless matches?

Are we just playing naïve games again?

So play chess with me this one last time.

We'll stare into each other's gazes again and never look away.

Come now, Fairy, with all your might. Send your pawns, knights, bishops, and rooks—even your precious queen—my way. Stay confident in your strategy and in your calculations so that when the pieces click into alignment on this black-and-white checkered board you have the Spriggan trapped in the corner with nowhere to run but out of the game.

When two immortals fight, it can only be right that one finally dies.

But tell me, Mavis. When the time comes down to it, would you be able to kill me?

Plan ahead for years to come—I'm certain you've already predicted the entirety of the next century under your wise gaze—but I know that the one thing you're leaving to chance are the emotions that lie beating underneath your chest.

For all I care, I'll hand you sweet victory, but I doubt that you'll feel complete when you declare checkmate.

You may capture the king, but I've already captured your heart.

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 **Blahhhhh, I'm not entirely sure what I just type-vomited. Sorry this one isn't all fun and happy! I can't help but write angst sometimes. But let me know what you think of this one! Reviews and messages much appreciated!**

 **thir13enth**


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